


The Winged Night

by Inert_PenMaid



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Action, Action & Romance, Blood and Gore, F/M, Horror, Romance, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-08-24 10:02:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8368165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inert_PenMaid/pseuds/Inert_PenMaid
Summary: Post Blackwater AU. With the Hound gone, Sansa dreams of her ghosts – if only to be with them. But the dance between nightmare and reality is gossamer - as she finds out one winged night, when she is summoned by King Joffrey.  Horror and romance in four instalments. Rated Explicit for the fourth.





	1. Among Revenants

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Hello! This was originally intended as a one-shot but honestly - it just became too long! This will be a work of four instalments, from the POV of Sansa Stark. I have only ever written as The Hound, so I thought it was time for a change. I hope I do her justice. It's very introspective at first, though the next instalments become progressively darker and...more happens. Enjoy! ~Inert_PenMaid

**The Winged Night**

**PART ONE: AMONG REVENANTS**

 

 

Screams recalled her: from dreams, from what once was; what could have been. Wherefore she heard the sound, she knew it was time to wake.

 

Sometimes she heard it as she stitched at Septa Mordane’s hearth with the other girls, as though many years ago was only yesterday. The sound might begin as a secretion on the wind, growing to yield upon the shutters like rocks; or as a squealing kettle sitting on the hearthfire, transgressing to a cry, shrill and terrible. See, it made no matter the dream. The girl _knew_.

 

The terrible sound could seek her out like a mastiff; find her anyplace, _anywhere_.

 

The screaming could even lift the branches of the Godswood, as though a chill. In life, she had never visited Lord Eddard at prayer, always perturbed by the pale bones of the Godstree, always unnerved standing beneath that bloody parasol... but in dreams, she went there most. Yearned to stay. Even when they sounded, she fought them. But then the Weirwood rictus twisted at her.

 

_Flee, silly girl,_ sap would smack between the carved white lips. She remembered as though it were real. _You must flee._

 

Lord Eddard never turned to watch her go.

 

Once - just once, she almost remained.

 

This time she had dreamed of her mother. It was not a diminished recollection like most others. The dream was ripe with memory; of Winterfell’s master chamber, of the soap on Lady Stark’s hands, of the treatments glowing in vials on her mother’s vanity. In the dream, her lady mother was raking a comb through her hair. Before them, their reflections shared a looking-glass, like pictures in a locket. So many times, she would watch her mother’s ministrations in the mirror, wondering if she was burgeoning into the Tully look, like everyone said. _Not like Arya._

 

That news always made her heart flutter. She always wished to be pretty.

 

Now, her looks were a torment. She had not seen Lady Catelyn for what seemed an age.  

 

_I wish to look at you for a lifetime,_ the girl tried to say to her, every time she dreamed it. _I wish I could die in this dream._ Perhaps it may not even be painful, to die. _I could live amongst revenants, like you, Mother, with you and Father. With Robb. Bran. Rickon, Arya..._ even Jon Snow, her bastard half-brother.

 

But before she could find her tongue - she heard them.

 

Mother did not so much as startle to the sound of the shutters flying ajar. Outside, the amorphous howling of wind sharpened, and screams took their place.

 

Understanding felled the girl.   _No,_ hotness welled behind her eyes. _No, I don’t want to go back._

 

Winterfell was rumbling like a gut. Screams beckoned louder, quaking the shutters.

 

“ _Mother_?” she knew it was all a dream, but still she tried. “Are you in there? Is it you at all?”

 

But Lady Stark continued her ministrations. Desperately, the girl ducked out from under the comb.

 

“They want me to _wake up_ ,” she told the thing that looked like her mother. “I don’t know who, but they want me to _go back_. But I won’t, Mother – not if you don’t want me to.”

 

Guttering light filled the room, and fear chipped her sentence. Behind them, trinkets at the bedside hopped where they sat, tripping over one another like lemmings. A tapestry slumped from its hinge on the far wall. Winterfell groaned like an oak before the felling –

 

And the world tilted.

 

She tried to grip the arms of her chair – but the chair cracked like chalk in her hands. She recoiled, but her nails crumbled away. Next, her fingers shortened, spilling like sand.

 

 “ _Mother_ ,” her eyes flicked up. But Mother was gone.

 

Everything was.

 

Waking up was the worst part. It was always as though being pulled through a sheer ice.  Winterfell dissolved around her - and then she was falling. The plight was through light and dark, sky and sea. A sound of screaming flooded her, filling her throat, so cold. Her chest opened and shut, but her heart would not beat in time.

 

_Wake!_ She told herself. _Wake or drown!_

 

She woke thrashing.

 

 Consciousness struck her body, here and now. For how long she couldn’t say, but the girl kept closed her eyes. The waves of sleep and reverie slaked into folds of silk, linen and thread – and, realising her place in the world once more, the girl found that she was lone, in her bed.

 

Anxiously, she gripped a fistful of the coverlets. _Is it done?_

 

It was too dark to see when Sansa at last dared to look.

 

“Arya?”

 

She didn’t know why she said it. Arya was not here, not in this place. Not in Winterfell, in the bedchamber they’d shared - not anywhere.

 

Because this was King’s Landing.

 

Sunken southron air sat on her lungs, crisp with incense. Or was that smoke, from the battle? The moon had changed thrice since Lion and Rose prevailed the Usurper on the Blackwater, but the air in King’s Landing seemed forever burning.

 

_Only cowards fight with fire,_ the Hound once told her.

 

He’d come to her in this very room, whilst the city was thick with fighting. _He asked me to leave with him._ But he’d been drunk, and terrified...she’d seen sense where he could not. The Hound fled without her.

 

_Where his way was barred at Maegor’s,_ she remembered bitterly.

 

It was just as she’d feared, just as she’d _told_ him. _The Queen’s closed the drawbridge,_ she’d warned him. But he would not listen. After the battle, the court would declare the Hound had lost a fight bravely, in the defence of his King. But Sansa knew the truth.

 

It was the Hound’s brothers overcame him. And by them Sandor Clegane was slain, there on Maegor’s drawbridge.

 

Even now, the thought amassed a feeling within her. She couldn’t say what it was.

 

The candle by her bedside still streamed white smoke. _It must only be mid-night._ There had once been a time when her nights were winged; and those nights bore her away like words on a page. Now, she tossed and turned. And always woke to find her mouth dry with the memory of a scream.  

 

No handmaiden ever rushed her door to console her. _And why should they?_ Sansa slunk forlornly from the covers. _I am nothing to any of them._

 

Her shutters only opened insofar as she could fit herself arm to shoulder. Clambering onto the table, she winched it as far as it would go. Even with the bowers of her nightmare crumbling around her, she needed to breathe the true air. Scowling into the gloom below her tower, she wondered how many times she had considered throwing herself from the ramparts of the Red Keep. _I could climb them, like Bran used to. Or drown myself in my tub._ Sansa didn’t know if she could hold herself under the water for so long though.

 

She came close to courage once.

 

They had been on the Traitor’s Walk, she and Joffrey and his Kingsguard. She saw it all happen as though she was not of her own body. Saw herself rushing the King, too quick for anyone to yank her back. She saw Joffrey’s eyes swelling with shock, heard his screams as they went plummeting into the bailey together, their silks snapping and flapping like two fighting hawks –

 

But suddenly, there was the Hound kneeling between them. Nothing had happened. Sansa remembered blinking away the glaze in her eyes, lest Clegane see what she had seen.

 

_But he did,_ Sansa knew. _He was Joff’s sworn shield, but he always knew what I was thinking._ She hated it.

 

And yet...a little of her was sad at his passing.

 

After all, he’d saved her.

 

  _No-one would hurt you again, or I’d kill them._ That was what he’d said. Then he’d threatened to kill her, and made her sing him a song. Despite it, Sansa still could not bear the thought of him murdered by his brothers any more than she could the think of him with the other corpses at the bottom of the Blackwater.

 

Worse, she knew he was in the Seven Hells.

 

At the foot of Sansa’s bed was a cedar wood chest. She found herself shivering before it, flicking its three brass locks...

 

She found it at the bottom. It still smelled of him, of that night.

 

Sansa staggered away from the chest, unravelling the huge article with her. The cloak was so long that her backside nudged the chamber door by the time she had removed it entirely. It was heavy, and frayed, and torn. With news of Clegane’s death, she did not know what good there was holding onto it; the Hound could kill nobody for her now, the freedom of hurting her was Joffrey’s forever.

 

And he was gone, forever.

 

The stained, ravaged cloak of the Kingsguard pulled her arms down with it. Sansa elbowed a stinging in her eyes. _Was this your last way to poke fun at me, Dog?_ She sank her teeth into her lip, to stop it quivering. _After all the lessons, all the jibes? I thought you hated knights._

 

Yet this was all he’d left her.

 

_I hate knights too,_ Sansa thought. _And I hate_ you _, for teaching me how._

 

A knock at her door. “Lady Sansa?”

 

Sansa recoiled. She had felt it through the door. _Pretend you are abed,_ she decided, careful not to make a sound. But the visitor called her name twice more, and it frightened her out of playing dead.

 

“Ser Balon?” she ventured.

 

“Lady Sansa,” Swann returned. “Kindly open the door. His Grace commands.”

 

  _His Grace?_ Fear pitted her stomach. _Is Joffrey come, too?_

 

“Of course,” she crunched the cloak to her chest. “Pardons, my lord. A moment!”

 

Sansa floundered about the room. _What to do?_ Should she stuff the cloak under the bed? Throw it from the window? It took two turns of her chamber before she remembered its hiding place, with the summer silks - and when she went to the door she realised the chest was still wide open.

 

 “A _moment!_ ” she stammered, fastening it shut.

 

The latch on her chamber door seemed to shirk out of her fingers. When she inched it open, sconce-light from the corridor assaulted her eyes:

 

The knight was alone.

 

“Ser?” she hoped that her hair was a tumult, that her eyes feigned sleep. “It is past the last toll. What may I do you?”

 

“His Grace commands your presence, my lady.”

 

“How? This instant?”

 

“At once, my lady.”

 

Sansa shivered and looked down at herself. She had forgotten to cover her modesty, but that scarce mattered now. _He knows about Dontos._ Panic tore loose in her head like an animal. _Or it is Robb. Robb is dead, and so am I._

 

“Oh,” she started. “It is cold. Might I...change, Ser?”

 

Swann grimaced. “A cloak should not aggrieve His Grace, but you must come now. Quickly, my lady.”

 

They wound corridor and room and stair undisturbed; the Red Keep was dormant at this hour. Her escort said nothing to her the across the drawbridge. The newly raised Ser Loras Tyrell was holding the entrance tonight, but Sansa could not bring herself to offer him a meek word. Her mind was with _that night_ , and the fires, and the stink of wine and blood, blood, blood.

 

_How many times have I crossed the place they murdered him?_ Each time she walked the bridge she looked for it. Being so close frightened her, still she could not help but seek the spot, morbidly fascinated.

 

But the Queen’s servants had dedicated days to eradicating all memory of the battle. _Of him._ Sansa had the last piece of him, locked away in her room.

 

Maegor’s Holdfast shrank across the courtyard. Next, they were taking more stairs. Burned red stones wept and engorged around them like viscera, full of turns and ways she did not know. Though the Red Keep contained her days and her nights, it was mostly unknown to her, too wary to exercise freedom of the fortress.   

 

Down, Ser Balon took her. Down, down, down.

 

The royal apartments were far behind them now. _Where is he taking me?_ Sansa recessed further into the folds of her cloak; she had laced it too tight at the neck, but even the air down here seemed too thick. Her knees seemed to churn on butter.

 

 Soon, the stairs fed into a narrow, cylindrical passageway. They were forced single file. The deeper they went, the more aged the architecture. Some of the steps were broken, and missing stones, or different sizes.

 

Sansa stumbled several times, but the knight’s arm never moved for her.

 

_Tell me what I have done?_ She wanted to ask. _Am I to die now?_ But he was not Sandor Clegane. _And they’re all liars here._

 

Best be quiet, she knew. It was best to be good.

 

“Through, my Lady,” Ser Balon’s voice roused her. “His Grace is without.”

 

Swann’s massive frame had been eclipsing a door at the end of the stair. It was hard-wood, heavy-looking, and studded.

 

Sansa realised at once what was on the other side. Her chest began to thump. “Why here?”

 

Swann evaded her eyes, and ushered her through.

 

* * *

 

 

 


	2. Before Her, A Sword

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sansa is summoned by the King in the dead of night. Wherefore, who knows?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back again! Firstly, ma-hoo-sive thank you to everyone for their kind words thus far - here is the next instalment, 2/4, 'Before Her, A Sword.'
> 
> [WARNINGS] Sexually aggressive/offensive/explicit language. Nevertheless, I hope this serves! Happy Halloween!

_**THE WINGED NIGHT** _

Part Two: Before Her, A Sword

 

It struck the drums of her ears; clamouring laughter, raucous as a bell. Stepping through the entrance, Sansa’s skin rutted; the sound was textured as any cut... just as _cold_. Hairs began to hone on her body, sharp as pins in a cushion.

 

Sansa knew the place.

 

A thousand tales of her childhood had taken place here. Sansa was never intended for the tales; the tales came from the tongues of dead men, thousands of them. _They say they hang them here,_ Sansa tried to forget, but she remembered. _Their tongues. They hang from nails in the stones._ And like bloody tongues, the tales trickled down too; through the smallfolk and their children, through servants and serving girls – and especially the grown girls, all wanting to scare a Stark virgin out of her innocence. If the boys begged, even Old Nan might tell of the place.

 

Sansa let herself look.

 

Stale air crouched beneath a vaulted ceiling, heavy with a chthonic ripeness that belonged only to somewhere deep below the rest of the world. These chambers were the shoulders on which the Red Keep rested, she knew, close to caverns and caves below that could collapse them all into the Blackwater rush, Seven willing. A stink of sea and stone and human odour clotted in her throat.

 

The chamber was limestone, held no warmth. There were scones at ever perpendicular pillar, and fire gleamed upon the wet rock like sweat. As she and Ser Balon Swann stepped inside, her slippers became damp with silt.

 

At the sound of the door, they all turned.

 

“ _Lo_! The amusements begin!” The King’s voice. “Ser Balon, you have my thanks.” He beckoned her with his fingers.  “Come.”

 

Sansa looked the others over first. Of them were four, standing in gilded milk armour: Boros Blount, Meryn Trant, Arys Oakheart and Osmund Kettleblack. _Four of them,_ she stole some joy in the thought. _To take the place of The Hound._ The limestone chamber leached up a fading laughter, but none of Joffrey’s Kingsguard were smiling anymore.

 

“Must I call you like some whelp? _Closer.”_

 

She hadn’t realised she’d moved at all. Her steps echoed.

 

The King was of a height with most of his Guard. He was crowned. He wore black breeches beneath a surcoat and mantle of dark green damask; its embellishments were peridot, glimmering like scales.  The golden hair that fell into Joffrey’s eyes made their sockets deepen, and inside them was wildfire.

 

“Better.” The King appraised her. “My lady, put us from our misery: has my guard Ser Boros lost or gained two silver stags, this eve?”

 

She did not understand, and that was always bad. “Your Grace?”

 

Joffrey rested a hand on a dirk at his belt. “We made a wager, my men and I. _Ser Balon_ ,” his eyes narrowed. “Relieve us with truth, Ser.”

 

“My King?”

 

“How does a lady go to her bed?” Joffrey’s eyes climbed her body. “In nothing, like a whore? Or wrapped up like an old sore? I cannot see for this damned cloak.”

 

Heat licked Sansa’s neck and face.

 

Ser Balon Swann had the grace to sound uncomfortable. “A shift, Your Grace.”

 

A frisson of amusement galvanised the Kingsguard. Suddenly Sansa was fighting to keep her feet. _Is this why he has brought me here? To rape me with his Kingsguard to witness?_ Fear stifled her. _He_ _has the Tyrell girl now –_ her, _not me. What does he want with_ me _?_

 

Joffrey smiled at her with those stupid lips. “My Lady, you may have served House Baratheon to little use, but at least you’d have it a stag or two richer. Ser Boros loses.” Then his gaze sharpened. “You’re late. I thought you might be refusing my wishes.”

 

“No, my Lord, _never_ -”

 

“Your _Grace_.”

 

“ _Your Grace_ ,” she agreed. “D-does...does the Queen know that I am here?”

 

“I don’t _care_ for the _Queen_. What tale have you heard where its king was run by any _woman_ , silly sow?”

 

Sansa was saying all the wrong things. “Forgive me -”

 

“Spare yourself, I cannot abide all this grovelling. Smallfolk _grovel_.” Joffrey scoffed, then snorted. “What jest was it earlier, Ser Meryn? About the poultice, and the dung? _False subjects are like a poultice full of dung_...?”

 

Meryn Trant turned stiffly in his high helm: “ _Always look as though they mean you some good_ , Your Grace.”

 

 “But...?”

 

“ _It don’t mean that they’re not full of shit_.”

 

The King turned to her with a giggle that was half-man, half-boy’s. “Excellent, Trant! Looksee, you amuse even my lady.”

 

She tried her hardest to smile. “Yes, very good, Your Grace.  Did you make it up amongst yourselves?”

 

Joffrey’s mirth vanished. “What does it matter, stupid girl? It’s _funny_.” But before he could further her torments, he added: “How do you find my dungeon?”

 

_Maegor the Cruel’s, you mean._ “Formidable, as His Grace.”

 

“I rather like it myself. Do you know why I sent for you?”

 

_It could be for anything, or all of it, or nothing at all._ Her extremities pulsed. “No.”

 

“No, _Your Grace_. I sent for you because I wanted to show you something very important.”

 

“ _Here_?” Sansa trembled. “Your Grace, I am nothing like the rest of my treasonous family. I...I know what happens to traitors.”

 

 “Oh, no. You _think_ you know. But I’m going to teach you a lesson today.”

 

The dungeons began shimmering. Quickly, Sansa dropped her eyes. _Do not cry,_ she chided herself. _You don’t know what you have done yet._ Maybe this was all for Margaery? Was he going to make her live down here, just to spare his betrothed the sight of her?

 

_No_ , Sansa gripped herself. _If he knew anything, I should be dead by now. And he would want me revealed at court first._

 

 “Thank you, my King,” she squeaked. “I am grateful. You are so very clever.”

 

“So the Starks don’t all have scrambles for brains. You never needed a septa’s lessons after all. I should have put her on a spike sooner.” It was then Joffrey flashed some fifty, perhaps sixty keys on a ring at his belt; some were long, others short, thick and skinny. Some of them were so brittle and oxidised that the nest reminded her of the Iron Throne.

 

“I hope you liked history,” said the King. “I am turnkey today. Come, learn with me.”

 

Sansa would have turned and run, were it not for Balon Swann.

 

They were accompanied by Ser Meryn and Ser Osmund. While she and the King paced the cells, she found that they were empty. On occasion, a flickering lamp would take the shape of a prisoner – but when she blinked, nothing. The cells were large with high windows, big enough to hold fifteen men.

 

“For the smallfolk,” Joffrey commented. “For pillagers, slanderers... people who do not pay my taxes. I make them live here, with the rats.”  

 

“Justly, You Grace.”

 

“ _Justly_?” snarled the King. “There are more rats in Flea-Bottom than in one of these cells. These cells are a _palace_.”

 

They came to the end of the corridor, and the cells ended. Here was a second door, huge and studded, opening to steps. Sansa took its stair with her heart pounding, never taking her eyes from the back of Joffrey’s head.

 

 “You’re making me do all the talking.” He scolded her, once they had stepped into the foyer below. “Don’t you know _anything_ about the Red Keep?”

 

Sansa remembered everything about the Red Keep.

 

The second level dungeon was listless as the former. Its silence only made her more acute to the clink of Kingsguard finery, of the King’s heels like a hammer on a wall.

 

Joffrey paused before one cell. It was already open, long abandoned. “These are for greater crimes, committed by false friends of the Crown.”

 

These cells were smaller, made to hold just one highborn captive. There was no window, no escape for even the stagnant air. Confronted by its vacancy, Sansa shuddered. It was empty of course, as all the others.

 

_There are no prisoners down here,_ the girl knew. _But there are ghosts._

 

“Say what you will of them,” said the King, revelling the sight. “But the Targaryens understood that punishment is an art. Don’t you agree, my lady? You’re looking at _history_.”

 

_Would that history stayed in a book, so I might slam the wretched thing shut._ “Is this what you mean to show me, Your Grace?”

 

Suddenly, the cell creaked shut in her face. She heard Joffrey’s steps, four paces on her already. “Not quite. _We have a duty to know our history_ , my Uncle Imp likes to say.” The King threw the comment over his shoulder. “You know my little uncle Tyrion?”

 

Sansa was still gaping after him. A rough shove from Trant, and she was hurrying to catch up. “I heard he was gravely injured on the Blackwater -”

 

“And rots in his sickbed as we speak. Let us hope a fever boils him up like an egg.”

 

She didn’t know what to say to that.

 

“You’re quite lucky,” the King added. “My dwarf uncle would likely be up in his solar at this hour, drunk – and being drunk makes a dwarf _quite_ randy, they say.  In that shift I’m uncertain even Ser Balon could stop him from tearing at you. They say now’s the time he sniffs about the Red Keep like a hog, looking for cunt.”

 

Sansa felt her face swell with blood.

 

“You’re still _virgin_ , aren’t you?”

 

“Yes. Of course, Your Grace.”

 

“But a woman flowered?”

 

Her hands itched, wanting to spring them over her intimacy. Places on her body that were hers alone felt brazen as a smoke herald; no cloak could ever have been thick enough. Sansa felt the eyes of the Kingsguard as though they were hands, sitting on her rump. “ _Yes_ , Your Grace.”

 

“Good. I look forward to your bridegroom’s thanks, after I break you in.”

 

The words rose like a wad of bile. “If it please you.”

 

“It does. And so shall this.”

 

They were standing in front of another door. Huge, wooden, studded. Stabbing at the lock, the King hauled the thing open.

 

Sansa looked.

 

This third stairway was deeper and darker than its predecessors. It seemed to grow like an ink blot, swallowing Sansa up. Vertiginous fear mounted her chest. _They can’t make me._ Whether a hole, or a great brink, it was too dark to see what was down there.

 

But the tales talked of the third chamber. And she _knew_.

 

The way back was too far to run. Behind, Ser Meryn and Ser Osmund closed like a wall, and Joffrey before her a sword.

 

The King offered her his arm.

 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading! Part 3 soon to follow, 'A Place for Monsters'. I hope you don't feel as though this was entirely filler, I thought it interesting to explore Joffrey as a character. I love to hate him thoroughly! I hope my version wasn't so OOC. Please leave me a comment & let me know what you thought, I really appreciate it!
> 
> Happy Halloween, love Inert_PenMaid x


	3. A Place for Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summoned by Joffrey in the dead of night to a place once dwelled by Maegor the Cruel, she is asked to face its monsters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am tardy in the extreme! I certainly hope you can forgive me; life can be a huge diversion, but my work on this has been ongoing. Also, I changed my pen-name! The good news (depending on whether or not you enjoy my scribblings) is that Part Three became so long, it had to be split into two. Which means the Winged Night will now be complete in four parts. 
> 
> Part Three is currently the longest of all the chapters, but I hope you enjoy it. It is called 'A Place for Monsters.'

** THE WINGED NIGHT **

** PART THREE: A PLACE FOR MONSTERS **

 

 

“Ninety-and-one-hundred feet beneath the Red Keep, they built this great place. They say as many men could scream down here, without even so much as to spook the rats above.”

 

The stairwell delivered them deep, deeper than she knew the Red Keep had any right to be. Their small party moved cautiously, clogging the passageway. Walls mangled them close, so that every which way a body brushed against her. The stair bore them upon black secrets; secrets that could never be repeated, for it was too dark to say whether they moved up or down, left or right... too dark vouch even for the shade of the stones. _The Targaryen king wanted it so,_ Sansa tried not to think about it, but the blackness gave foothold to all her imagination, all manners of incubi; and moments of gore slashed open the mute dark to frighten her. _He wanted it so that the lone man might never find his_

_way out._

Sansa forced herself to focus on her feet, on the steps. There was no telling where each would land. The ground seemed to divulge itself only at the very last, just when she thought she was going to fall -

 

_Another step._ Sansa felt shuddering impact rise through her knees. _And another_. She gripped the King’s arm, steadying herself. She only hoped the feral beating in her chest went unheard by the men.

 

At last, an opening appeared.

 

“Sers,” the King spoke as they reached the bottom. “Find a light. My Lady should want to remember this night in gruesome detail.”

 

 Sansa would have scratched out her eyes had she dared.

 

A foyer awaited them at the end of the stair. As they entered, Joffrey let go her arm, sweeping into the room. Unsure of what else to do, Sansa followed.

 

The room was a roughly rounded, dim chamber. A circumference of sputtering torches ringed the ceiling, bloating into a dome above them. Sansa found herself in the middle of it, making a circle on her toes. Colour dripped from the torches, revealing in snatches the exact hue of the walls. It was sorrel, like a nefarious stain long-dried. Sansa shuddered; she had seen the colour before. _Blood, blood, blood..._

 

Footsteps sounded as the Kingsguard filed in. Someone brushed Sansa from their path to cross the foyer. His huge cloak stirred a shiver on her skin.

 

Sansa glared after him. _That colour does not become you, Ser. Some poor washerwomen has scoured the sin from it._ She heard them by the well every day. _Kingsguard should don mourning to spare them the trouble._ Ser Osmund Kettleblack was tall enough to ease two torches free from the wall. Handing one to Trant, the glow of the chamber shifted, its favour leaping from one wall to the next – revealing a corridor Sansa had not noticed before.

 

Sansa’s mouth dried when she saw. _Cells._ Twelve that she could see, but there was certain to be more. No torch could disclose the rest; the corridor expired into shadows, all detail disappearing down its gullet.

 

_He’s going to take me there._ There was no use lying to herself. _Whatever my fate, it lies there._

 

“I know where we are, Your Grace.”

 

The King had been looking at her all along, arms crossed. His mouth ticked.  “The _Black Cells_ , Targaryen called them.”  

 

“Yes.” Sansa’s breath calcified in the cold.  “We should not be here. This is a place for _monsters_ , Your Grace.”

 

It was a childish thing to say. She looked to Joffrey, already forming a contrition –

 

Instead, a sound grew from the corridor.

 

Even Joffrey turned to it. Sers Meryn and Osmund too.

 

Sansa bristled, unmoving. It magnified, like a rock ricocheting down a mineshaft. It seemed far away and beside her all at once. A forbidding, strangulated sound. A _scream_. The corridor was black and still, but the sound rushed into and engorged within the chamber until it was humming like a cymbal.

 

A feeble echo was all that remained of the sound. Sansa swallowed.  “ _My lord_. What was - ?”

 

Joffrey’s smile cut her down. In the half-light all she saw were teeth, glimmering like frost-fangs. There was everything about it not to like. When he was satisfied she would say no more, he turned to his Kingsguard:

 

“Sers. You are no longer needed...”

 

For once the thought of being without the knights frightened her.   _No. Stay. Stay, you louts, damn you._

 

 “...I want you to wait without. Admit nobody to disturb us.”

 

_No._  Sansa pleaded them with her eyes, but there was no humanity behind those polished high-helms. The eyes inside them avoided her. _Don’t let him take me in there. Don’t let him hurt me._

 

Before they could move to obey him, Sansa blurted: “But _Your Grace_ , the way is so dark!”

 

Joffrey threw an eye over his shoulder, at the corridor. “Is that so?”

 

 “I...only meant -” Sansa didn’t know what she meant. “...Is it not _a knight’s_ office, Your Grace? To _protect_.  Anything could be down there. You had a sworn shield, once.”

 

“Indeed I did, clever girl. Well remembered.” The King dragged one fat lip into his teeth, considering her. Something burgeoned behind his eyes, streaking both of them as quick as a comet. But Sansa saw. “Does the dark frighten you more than even my Dog did?”

 

_Not him. You_. “Yes, _Your Grace_. Terribly.”

 

“How very interesting. I once beheld The Hound cleave a boy in half with one stroke. The blade went right through, bone and blubber and all.” He smirked. “But I never saw any shadow that could do the same.”

 

_There was one,_ she knew. _One, and it killed Renly Baratheon, they say. I hope it kills_ you _._  “I would have your knights by our side. I would stay and learn my lessons _here_.”

 

 “You would _do_ as I _want_ you to do. Enough of this quivering. Trant: lend her your light, so that my lady may better see.”

 

Ser Meryn thrust the fire at her.

 

She eyed Trant, then the torch. _See what?_ Trant again. “No. I don’t _want_ it.”  

 

“ _No_?” she heard Joffrey say. “Shall I instruct Ser Meryn to _beat_ you? Would you want _that_ , instead?”

 

“Please, I -”

 

Meryn’s voice thundered inside his helm: “You’ll do as your King _commands_.”

 

Sansa faltered. Crackling tongues of azure and gold and blood-red lapped at her, never quite reaching. There was no use in denying him. _Save yourself some pain, girl,_ the flames reminded her. _Give him what he wants._ Resignedly, her fingers reached out.

 

“There’s a good girl,” said the King. “Now, come with me.”

 

* * *

 

Without her light or the King’s lead the tunnel would have devoured them both. It was inexhaustible. Just when she thought the corridor would end, her torch would flicker to extend the walkway a further few yards, reveal more doors. The Black Cells flanked Sansa and the King at either side. Only these had no bars, like those in the first and second floor dungeon. The cells were doored, with not even a window or shutter to see in. Clutching at Joffrey’s arm, she saw the doors were wooden, streaked and notched by longevity; hard as scars. Iron bolts riddled them like wounds.

 

The tunnel was narrow, drilled like a wormhole in a fig. So dark, so remote. Sansa would have forgotten that they were beneath the Red Keep at all were it not for the taste brine on the air, death-cold. _The Blackwater._ Joffrey’s heeled boots rang out as they went door by door, cell to cell. Her tummy lurched as they passed each one, feeling part of some terrifying lottery.

 

 This was a place for marked men. Murderers...and _traitors_. 

 

_Joffrey knows everything,_ she was convinced of it. _One of these cells is meant for me._ “I did not know that there was somebody intended for Ser Illyn, Your Grace. There has been no talk at court.”

 

“What makes you think the _Crown_ would have you know what it talks about? You are the whelp of a known _traitor_ , after all.” Joffrey soured. “You women; you truly are one entire _dull_ breed, aren’t you? The only thing you seem fit for is to be on your backs or exchanging gossip you know absolutely nothing about. The Queen too. See, she would have me parade Crown business this instant, make an example of my enemies without first having a little fun. Make a good show of things.”

 

_What things?_ “A _show_ , Your Grace?”   

 

Joffrey paused a long while. “You said you were afraid of monsters. What did you ever make of _The Mountain_ , my lady?”

 

Sansa did not know what Ser Gregor Clegane had to do with any of this. “I...I saw him tilt in the lists once. He _killed_ a knight.”

 

“A _moron_ ,” quipped the King, laughing. “A moron whose gorget wasn’t fastened correctly - _anyone_ could see that. If the sot couldn’t even dress himself, why should we wail over one less moron in the Kingdom? Let all of them take a lance to the throat, I say - _and_ the sots who cry for it. Do you think my uncle Stannis covets my throne to rule a kingdom of _gulls_?”

 

“No, Your Grace.” But Sansa was not thinking of Stannis. The reminder of Ser Gregor Clegane and his career of bloodshed clung to her. He was famed for violence, but there was one deed more terrible than the others; a secret. A secret known only to Sansa and to an unmarked grave, somewhere in this very capital. _If you ever tell anyone,_ a voice rasped at her. _I’ll kill you._

 

A terrible thought entered her mind. “But Ser Gregor is in the _riverlands_...”

 

Joffrey smirked. “Never fear, sweet lady. Ser Gregor would never have fit the first door. Besides, The Mountain is Mother’s monster to parade about as she likes. I have monsters of my own.”

 

He was trying to frighten her, and succeeding. Sansa’s throat constricted around the words. “What do you do with them, Your Grace? Your monsters?”

 

 “Don’t get ahead of yourself, now. Fear works best when it can still surprise you. That’s a _true_ show.”

 

_Shows are for mummers._ Sansa wanted to rip her arm from Joffrey’s and flee. She remembered the tourney soil, and how the blood sluiced from the dirt when Ser Gregor’s lance rode up. _What happened to Ser Hugh of the Vale was no show. When a Targaryen knighted The Mountain, or when a Targaryen built this place, was that only for show, too?_

 

_Am I to believe I am here for a show?_

 

Joffrey noticed her face. “You’ve gone quite pale.”

 

“Monsters frighten me, Your Grace.”

 

“And plenty of them have walked these halls. One day when my uncle Jaime is freed I shall have a place here for your brother.” Joffrey’s hand went out suddenly to point. “Right _there_ , in fact.”  

 

Sansa’s eyes followed his gesture. The cell already shrinking behind them looked like any other. “Your Grace?”  

 

“I am told that one was your beloved Lord Stark’s. Right before Ser Illyn brought me his head.”   

 

All of a sudden, the sight stung her. Sansa wheeled, tripping. Torch swerving in her grip, she felt the heat of it brush her face before she righted herself, tangling her fingers in Joffrey’s sleeve.

 

“Watch your step,” reprimanded the King.

 

Sansa could feel her fingernails splitting her palms. She had made a fist around the torch. It was becoming heavier in her grip. Too heavy to swing. _But you could set him alight,_ a furtive voice crept upon her. _In all that finery, he’d take a flame like a match._ But that was not the same as shoving him from the Traitor’s Walk. No...

 

 She could not follow him. The Kingsguard would surely kill her. 

 

“A place here is too gentle for such a wretch.” Sansa insisted, instead. “Robb Stark is a traitor. The Starks are all traitors.”

 

“That’s right,” agreed the King. “Here is far enough.”

 

They had stopped walking, Sansa realised.

 

They were standing by a cell.

 

Glancing over her shoulder, there was nothing but darkness. And ahead - darkness.  Sansa regarded the door in front of them.

 

It was set within broken stones, the dark wood belted thrice with iron to plug the life behind it. Shadows quivered upon its surface...but not from Sansa’s own light. Her eyes found the sconce above. A blue flame was dying there.

 

_It’s here,_ Sansa knew. _My lesson._

 

Joffrey was watching her.  “My lady looks alarmed.”

 

 “A-alarmed? I -”

 

“Notice these doors? Targaryen the Cruel had them made to be four inches thick. See?” Joffrey rapped the door hard with a knuckle. “Nothing goes in or out, not without my key. You could stage an orgy in this very corridor, and nothing in any one of these cells would hear a thing.”

 

Sansa did not care for any more history lessons; she wanted it to be over. “Yes, my King.”

 

Joffrey’s gaze narrowed upon her face, searching it. His pupils spilled into his eyes. Sansa’s heart raced as she watched at her own terrified reflection form there, her torch flickering in both like a fire on tar.

 

 “You were my betrothed once.” he observed. “Don’t you remember?”   

 

Before she could say, the King sloshed forward.

 

Sansa almost recoiled – but she felt something cold upon her face, rooting her still. When she opened her eyes, those gruesome brown lips were in front of her, inches from her. A tongue darted between them. His breath was ashen on her as he leaned close.

 

“I could never marry you, traitor that you are. But I loved you once.” Joffrey’s fingers crushed her cheeks. “And so you are safe, so long as you are _good_. You’re with your _King_ now, sweet lady. And you’re not to be frightened.”

 

Sansa fixed her eyes on nothing. _Not yet,_ he means. She nodded.

 

“Good girl.” She felt something moisten her forehead, and knew he had kissed her. “Well? What do you imagine is on the other side?” 

 

_Dontos. Father’s ghost. A monster, vile and terrible._ “I am sorry, my King. I have no gift for guessing games.”

 

“No matter. You’re going to find out.”

 

And his hand was gone. Then Sansa heard the guttural response of a lock as the King produced a key – twisting with a _clank_.

 

The cell released like a rusted valve.

 

A rush of frozen air fussed at her clothes and skin. Sansa’s torchlight shrank before the cell’s open black maw, flapping wildly. Her heart thudded as the two of them gawked a moment. Then Joffrey straightened.

 

“We should need your light,” assessed the King. “You first.”

 

 Sansa shuddered. “In _there_?”

 

“In there. You first.”

 

 “My King -”

 

“ _You first_. Or must I make you?”

 

Sansa would not have Joffrey’s hands on her again for the wide world. There was no use in denying him. She moved.

 

* * *

 

 

The moment Sansa stepped inside she heard the roaches scattering, loud as rain on tin. Torchlight guttering, her stomach gave a lurch. _Please no,_ she prayed, but her arms would not stop jerking. Day or night did not exist in the Black Cells. _If I outlive this place,_ Sansa vowed. _I would light every lamp in my chamber, to never be in the dark again._ Darkness was not fit for the place; the place held no promise for light. The place held nothing. The place was _black._   Groping her way with the torch, her own shadow scaled on wall beside her.

 

_How will I know what to look for?_ But she was too frightened to call out. _Dontos? Is it you? Have I killed myself, and you?_

 

Sansa’s slippers began to stir with movement. Braving to look down, she saw that the straw flooring was live. Revulsion drained her mouth. Things were _crawling_ on her.

 

She shook free with a whimper, and the straw hissed back.

 

The cell was larger than she expected. No wall responded to her reach, no matter which way she stuck out an arm. Even through the fire, she could see nothing. She inched along, her slippers squelching in wet straw; bitter cold. _This is some trick,_ she tried to quell the voice inside her. _There never was a monster, no ghost, no Dontos. Joffrey and the Queen want you_ dead _-_

 

A nose clanged in the dark. _Chains on stone._ Once more –

 

Terror lifted her off the ground.

 

 Recoiling, Sansa almost dropped the light, but something rushed her hard form behind, knocking the wind out of her. Their bodies met with a thump, and cold fingers clamped the wrist that held her torch.

 

“ _Brave now, sweet lady_.” Joffrey’s mouth wet her ear. “Brave. _Look_.”

 

Sansa’s heart was rigorous. “ _I can’t. I can’t_.”

 

“I’m going to make you. _Look._ ”

 

The King gave her wrist a yank so hard she squealed. He hoisted her arm and the fire high: slowly, light climbed the cell, illuminating the farthest reaches of the space.

 

A hulking, dark mass was lying against the wall. Throbbing started behind her eyes as they adjusted to the dark, and her sight began to divorce the shapes and shadows from one another. Silhouettes furled and unfurled before her.  After a moment, the alcove of shadow sharpened - and became a _thing_.

 

Air escaped her chest. _Not Dontos._ Too huge to be Dontos. She could feel Joffrey’s hands pinching her body, forcing her to stand. 

 

“ _Listen_ ,” the King hissed.

 

The hairs at her nape stood. She heard it. The sound of steady, slow breath, rolling and unravelling like tide in a sea-cave. _It is sleeping._

 

“Shall I wake him, my lady?” But Joffrey did not wait for her answer, and called out: “That’s enough rest, cur. You are in the presence of your King.”

 

The breathing stopped. The dark stirred, and two drowsy lights opened in the face.

 

“That’s it.” she could hear the King’s relish as he spoke, loud. “You remember where you are, now? Where I _put_ you? Or shall I remind you?”

 

Joffrey shoved her torch-hand forward. The creature grunted, cringing away from the brightness. Slick, dark hair dripped over its face like molasses. She heard disease crackling inside its chest.

 

 “ _Cur_ ,” the King spat.

 

The word looped around the cell, pealing. Its sound was enough to assault even Sansa, but the creature twitched, pained, unused to it. That was enough this time. Its head turned. Ropes of thin, black hair shimmered in blood and dross as he moved. It all slopped aside in one turn – and Sansa’s torch struck that side of his face.

 

Shock rolled her tongue into her throat, dry as a wadded rag. _It’s true._

 

The face was _monstrous_. Effervescing in spittle and blood foam, it throbbed from the nostrils and mouth. There was no lip on the side that Sansa could see. It twisted away into a mass of red, raw flesh. Livid, white pegs teemed in the redundant, bloody hole. _Teeth._ Not fangs, but _teeth_.

 

She formed a terrible understanding. This was not a monster.

 

_A man._ _A flayed man._

 

All the meat on that side of his face had peeled into petals of blood and skin; scarring and fresh wounds became indistinct. Under her torch they seemed to wriggle and convulse, pulsating like bubbles on a heat. The imprisoned could not see his visitors behind the flames – but Sansa could see _everything_ now.

 

At last, her eyes found his. They glared upwards like two chips of polished glass, burning blindly in the dark. Gleaming like a dog’s.

 

Suddenly, Sansa flinched with recognition. _No._

 

Somewhere, she heard the torch that had once been in her hand strike the damp straw. Her eyes chased it as it went reeling away into the dark...

 

Rolling to a stop by the prisoner’s boot.

 

Two iron rings in the wall clinked as the prisoner leaned up to inspect. The huge shape sat up with a grunt that was half-agony, half-obstinate. His gaunt face twisted on only one side, and the darkness rasped a laugh.

 

“Even atop the stink of my own shit, I can still smell you for worse.” And Sandor Clegane sniffed at the gasping firewood. “You’ve dropped your stick, _boy_.”

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you SO much for reading! Part Four is underway! Leave a comment if you wish, and let me know how you found this vile little cliffhanger. If you want updates, or to nosy in general, my Tumblr is the same url. Love,
> 
> Inert_PenMaid x

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Thank you very much for reading! These instalments promise to become darker; be warned! :) Leave a comment, if you wish, and I honestly hope you find some enjoyment out of being spooked!


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